OUT THE FRONT DOOR

La Plata County is located in southwestern Colorado and has 51,000 residents. Its county seat is Durango, which has 17,000 residents. The impounding agency for the city and county is La Plata County Humane Society (LPCHS), which has an animal control division. LPCHS describes itself as an “open-admission animal shelter.” The shelter accepts owner surrenders from La Plata County and Durango but asks that people call first. A shelter representative told me that, in addition to open-admission acceptance of La Plata and Durango animals, LPCHS also accepts animals from outside of its jurisdiction when it has room. All animals are spayed or neutered, vaccinated, and microchipped before they leave the shelter. The shelter offers owner-requested euthanasia. LPCHS participates in the PetSmart Charities Rescue Waggin’ program. This article describes a recent transport from LPCHS to the Humane Society of Boulder Valley. LPCHS shelter director Chris Nelson said they had not euthanized a dog for space since they began to participate in the program. Lisa Pedersen, director of the Humane Society of Boulder Valley, said they might be short of dogs to adopt out without the transfers. She attributed that fact to the attitude of people in Boulder Valley, stating that adoption from the shelter was the “popular choice” for people in the area. LPCHS submits its statistics to the state of Colorado. For 2013, total intake was 3047 animals. This gives the shelter an extremely high pets-per-thousand-people rate of 60. The shelter adopted out 1905 animals and transferred 193. The live release rate was 92%. The modified live release rate including shelter deaths was 91%.

Lake County is in west central Colorado and has a population of 7300 people. The city of Leadville, the county seat, has 2600 inhabitants. Lake County is in an extremely mountainous area, and it has an elevation that is mostly above 9000 feet. The county contains the highest peak in Colorado, Mt. Elbert. The Leadville/Lake County Animal Shelter (LLCAS) is run by the city and county. I called the shelter and was told that LLCAS accepts owner surrenders from its jurisdiction subject to a small fee and on a space-available basis. The shelter is open 7 days a week and closes only on major holidays. Statistics from the Colorado Department of Agriculture for 2012 show that LLCAS took in 181 dogs and cats in 2012 and had a live release rate of 99% for 2012 (98% if the one animal who died in shelter care is included with euthanasias). The shelter’s intake was 25 animals per 1000 people in 2012. In 2013, the shelter’s intake increased to 208 animals. The live release rate was 99%, or 96% if the animals who died in shelter care are included with euthanasias. Lake County was originally listed by this blog on November 25, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Chaffee County is located in a mountainous, rural area of Colorado west of Colorado Springs. It has a 2010 population of 18,000 people, including the towns of Buena Vista (population 2600) and Salida (5200), the county seat. Animal sheltering is provided for the county and its cities by the Ark-Valley Humane Society (AVHS). I called AVHS and was told by a shelter official that the county has two animal control officers, one each in Buena Vista and Salida. AVHS does not have a formal contract with the county, but the animal control officers bring strays to AVHS for impounding. AVHS also takes in owner surrenders. The shelter does not have a surrender fee for county residents, but does charge a fee for out-of-county surrenders. The shelter official told me that AVHS does not have a waiting list or a requirement for an appointment. The shelter has several initiatives, including low-income spay-neuter assistance and Trap-Neuter-Return for feral cats, and an active volunteer program. AVHS has two shelters. The main shelter is located in Buena Vista and a satellite, called the Sunshine Shelter, is located in Poncha Springs. This video offers a look at the Sunshine Shelter. One unique thing about it is a garden filled with cat-and-dog themed outdoor sculptures by local artists. The AVHS 2012 annual report describes how the Sunshine Shelter has enabled AVHS to meet the needs of cats in Chaffee County and help other shelters with cats. Animal shelters in Colorado report to the state Department of Agriculture. AVHS’s two shelters report separately. The total intake of the two shelters as reported to the state was 1269 animals in 2012 (the intake of 988 animals stated in the AVHS 2012 Annual Report does not include the animals that AVHS took in from other shelters). This is a very high intake of about 70 animals per 1000 people. The live release rate for 2012 including dispositions of the transferred animals was 96% (95% if animals who died or were lost in shelter care are counted with euthanasias). In 2013, total intake for both shelters was 919 animals. The live release rate was 99% for the Buena Vista shelter and 97% for the Poncha Springs shelter. The modified live release rates were 98% and 96% respectively. Chaffee County, CO, was originally listed by this blog on October 26, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Merritt Clifton recently started an online animal news service called Animals 24-7. An article he posted on that website called Why We Cannot Adopt Our Way Out of Shelter Killing has attracted some interest. In this blog post I will set out Merritt’s arguments, as I understand them, and discuss why I think that statistics do not support those arguments. Merritt begins by arguing that adoptions from shelters can never be more than 50% of pet acquisitions because shelters don’t produce pets, they just rehome them. Leaving aside the merits of this argument, it is addressing the wrong question. The real question we need to answer is not what is the maximum possible market share for shelter adoptions, but whether shelter adoptions can make up enough of market share to accommodate the animals in shelters today who need homes. The American Pet Products Association national pet owners survey estimates that in 2012 there were 83 million owned dogs and 96 million owned cats in the United States, or a total of 179 million owned cats and dogs. About 85% of people state that if their pet dies they will acquire a new pet, and in addition there are new pet owners joining the market as new households are formed. Even if we assume that people replace a pet only once every 15 years (and the average replacement is probably far more frequent that that), and if we assume that demand is stagnant, that would mean that there is a market for 12 million cats and dogs each year. In reality, the market is not stagnant and replacement is probably about every 6-7 years on average, so demand for dogs and cats is probably on the order of 30 million or so per year. Regardless, since only about 6 to 8 million dogs and cats enter animal shelters each year (and some of those are reclaimed), there are more than enough homes available to adopt our way out of killing. Merritt does not address these numbers directly. Instead, he makes a series of observations that he appears to believe add up to the impossibility of adopting our way out of killing.  For example, under the heading “Total Adoptions Are Down,” he argues that adoptions have fallen in the United States nationally and in New York, San Francisco, and the Seattle metro area. As for the US as a whole, shelter reform advocates do not argue that old-fashioned, traditional shelters have increased their adoptions – instead, shelter reform advocates argue that they could increase their adoptions if they had good marketing and outreach programs and sufficient community engagement. As for Seattle (LRR 90%+), New York (LRR 80%+) and San Francisco (LRR around 85%), those communities are already close to saving all healthy and treatable animals, so criticizing them for not showing increases in their adoption numbers would not appear to be justified. Merritt predicts that Seattle, New York, and San Francisco will have further decreases in adoption numbers in the future if they are unable to import as many animals for people to adopt as they have in the past. But this appears to cut rather strongly against his argument. If adoption numbers drop because there is not enough supply to meet the demand, then voila, we have adopted our way out of killing. The argument that Merritt appears to rely on most strongly is his claim that adoptions nationwide will never exceed more than 10 pets per 1000 people for a sustained period of time. There are approximately 318 million people in the United States currently. An adoption rate of 10 pets per 1000 people per year would mean that we could adopt out 3,180,000 shelter pets each year. It’s estimated that about 6 million of the animals who come into shelters each year and are not reclaimed are adoptable. So, we would need to have an adoption rate of about 19 pets per thousand people in order to find homes for all the adoptable animals. Adopting out 19 or more animals per 1000 people is not only possible, it is being done in many communities all over the United States. I have a spreadsheet with population data on all the communities listed in the right sidebar. Of the 100 public shelters listed for those communities in 2012, I have adoption data on 89 of them. Of those shelters, 33 reported adoption figures that met or exceeded 19 per 1000 people. And 54 of them reported adoptions exceeding 10 per thousand people. This is an impressive record when you consider that it is only in the last few years that some progressive shelters have started to take full advantage of modern marketing techniques. You might be wondering why, since the shelters I list in the right sidebar are all saving 90% or more of intake, they don’t all have adoption rates of at least 19 per 1000 people. The answer is that there are other methods besides adoption for assuring live outcomes. The estimate that 6 million shelter animals (translating into 19 animals per 1000 people) need adoptive homes each year is based in part on current rates of redemption. If a particular shelter has higher than average rates of return-to-owner or return-to-colony, the number of adoptive homes needed goes down by a corresponding amount. The fact that many shelters can achieve a 90% or better live release rate without an adoption rate of 19 per 1000 people demonstrates by definition that the 19 per 1000 people rate probably overstates the number of adoptions needed. But the fact that many 90%+ shelters have adoption rates of 19 or more per 1000 people proves that such rates are possible if needed. Merritt acknowledges that there are shelters with consistent adoption rates that exceed 10 per 1000 people, but he discounts those shelters for various reasons. For example, he argues that Washoe County (including Reno), which consistently has an adoption rate per thousand people of over 20, is pulling adopters from all over Nevada, and this distorts its numbers. He does not give us his reasons for thinking that Washoe County is finding adopters outside of its jurisdiction and, looking at the map, his claim seems highly unlikely. The only substantial population center close enough to Washoe County to be a reasonable driving distance for potential adopters appears to be  Carson City. I have been told in the course of my researches for the blog that Carson City is doing quite well at saving homeless animals, which it could not do if it were losing adopters to Washoe County. Another place with a high rate of adoptions that Merritt critiques is the state of Colorado. The state of Colorado had an adoption rate of 16 per 1000 people in 2012, based on reports made by public shelters in the state. Merritt dismisses Colorado by arguing that it imported many of the animals it adopted out, and without the transfers its adoption rate would not have been so high. This argument fails for the obvious reason that, if we are looking at adoption rates, the relevant data is not where the animals come from but where they go. If they go into adoptive homes in large enough numbers to produce a high live release rate, then that is evidence that we can adopt our way out of killing. The fact that Colorado can find homes for animals transported in simply means that Colorado (which had an 85% live release rate statewide in 2012) is not only able to adopt its way out of killing, it can help its neighbors do so too. A more serious argument is that in the case of cats, who are not bred for profit in large numbers the way dogs are, there is no significant commercial market share for shelters to capture. Thus, this argument goes, when shelters increase their adoption numbers for cats they are taking homes that otherwise would have adopted a neighborhood cat, or a kitten from a friend or relative’s “oops” litter. This argument has two flaws. First, if a shelter can adopt animals at the rate of 19 per thousand people or more, then it can find homes for all the animals coming in to the shelter, including the neighborhood cats and the “oops” litters. Indeed, it’s better for those animals to go through the shelter rather than directly into homes, because in a good shelter they will be vaccinated and spayed or neutered. Second, the modern thinking about cats is that in many cases shelter-neuter-return is the appropriate course, and in the future we may see intake of cats in shelters greatly decreased. This is already happening in many communities. Merritt argues that efforts by shelters to do more marketing are futile because shelters have already made a “tremendous investment in rehoming” without increasing market share. While it is true that many shelters are making more of an effort at adoptions than they used to, and are participating in events such as Home 4 the Holidays, most shelters that have live release rates under 80% are not making a “tremendous investment in rehoming.” A comprehensive marketing program means more than having a Pet of the Week and taking kittens to the pet store on Saturdays. To sum up, in order for Merritt to prove his claim that we cannot adopt our way out of killing he must show either that (1) there are not sufficient homes available for the number of shelter animals who need adoptive homes each year, or (2) even if there are enough homes available, shelters cannot capture those homes. Merritt’s article does not demonstrate that that the requisite number of homes is lacking and does not show that shelters are incapable of marketing their animals to those homes. In fact, the evidence goes the other way, as I have shown. Why am I taking so much time and space to respond to the claim that we cannot adopt our way out of killing? Claims such as Merritt is making can have consequences in the real world. For example, someone who believes that we cannot adopt our way out of killing is likely to believe that the only way to stop shelter animals from being killed is to stop them from being born in the first place. I think that spay-neuter initiatives are extremely important, especially the newer efforts that target particular neighborhoods with people going door-to-door. But spay-neuter efforts are just one method for saving lives, and adoption is another method that does work and should not be dismissed.

To borrow a phrase from the last few State of the Union speeches, the state of No Kill — is strong. In fact, it’s great. But the movement is now at a place where it behooves us to take stock and think about where we are and where we’re going. So here is my two cents on the State of No Kill. No Kill has matured enough as a movement that it has divided into two wings. We have a moderate, practical group that is made up of people who are doing the boots-on-the-ground work and direct support of boots-on-the-ground. These people include the directors of No Kill shelters, the active consultants, the donor organizations, the people in large national organizations who are working on individual community No Kill efforts, and shelter medicine specialists. The moderate wing has been enormously successful, as can be seen by the rapid growth of No Kill communities. The second faction is what I call the radical wing. It is made up of advocates who speak directly to the public and try to get them to take action to reform their local shelters through grassroots political and social pressure. The radical wing is led by Nathan Winograd, and it has also been very successful at what it does. In my work I frequently see cases where grassroots pressure from local people has caused city or county leaders to pay attention to their animal shelter. Pressure by itself does not create No Kill, and it seems to me that these communities do not actually succeed in getting to No Kill without people from the moderate middle coming in and taking the practical steps to effect the transition, but the radical wing can wake people up and give the moderate middle a chance to work. The State of No Kill is not perfect, though. The biggest issue I see right now is that No Kill moderates have not developed a leadership class to speak for them as a whole. Right now No Kill has been proven to work anywhere, under any circumstances, although some communities (San Antonio, for example) face far greater challenges than others. But there is no leadership structure in the moderate group to carry this message. This appears to be because the moderate middle is large and diverse, consisting as it does of several big organizations and hundreds of individuals who are actively managing No Kill shelters and programs. The radical wing has tried to fill this gap to some extent by talking about No Kill successes, but the radical wing lacks credibility with the traditional shelter establishment because the radical wing’s leaders are, by and large, engaged in advocacy rather than in the day-to-day work of running No Kill shelters. The radical wing, in my opinion, is more effective at its core mission, which is to get the No Kill message out to the masses and to urge existing No Kill communities to become even better. The reason that most effective movements have more than one wing is precisely because there is more than one message that needs to be conveyed. The radical wing of advocates has enough to do carrying its message of the faults with the system. It should not be expected to also carry the positive message of the moderate group of boots-on-the-ground creators of No Kill communities. No Kill moderates are ideally positioned at this time to move the traditional shelter establishment rapidly in the direction of No Kill. The debate about the effectiveness of No Kill is over. There is a need now for the traditional shelter establishment to hear from a moderate No Kill faction that is speaking with a clear voice. A moderate middle that is not interested in criticizing the traditional shelter establishment or in setting standards that the traditional establishment thinks are unattainable. Instead, the message of the moderates should be “we are people who are currently working in open-admission No Kill shelters and we understand what your problems are and we are here to help you.” There are signs that No Kill’s moderates are coalescing. A recent example is the Million Cat Challenge, which has a long list of signatories from the moderate middle. The Challenge got off to an impressive start and I can’t help but think that the support of the signatories had a lot to do with it. And in recent years the Best Friends No More Homeless Pets Conference has become a kind of de facto meeting place for No Kill moderates. The natural next step is for No Kill’s moderates to formalize in some fashion a leadership structure to guide its outreach to the traditional shelter establishment. It would be helpful if that leadership started off by setting some standards — i.e., what does “No Kill” mean, what is an “open admission” shelter, how should shelters calculate their statistics, what is required for shelter transparency, what are best practices, etc. This would be a big, much-needed, and worthwhile task all by itself. An even greater need, however, is for the moderates to be able to speak with a unified voice to the traditional shelter establishment, to let that establishment know that No Kill is now mainstream and that we will welcome them in joining us.

Boston University has just published the results from its 21st-Century Mayor’s Leadership Survey. The purpose of this survey is to improve how cities function, and the methodology included interviewing over 70 mayors from representative cities both large and small. One of the questions asked during the interviews was: “Which three cities (either domestic or foreign) do you most often look to for policy and/or management ideas?” The report lists the 18 cities most commonly mentioned by the mayors (see page 29 of the report) and the percentage of mayors who mentioned each city. The results are stunning. Of the top 10 cities cited for policy and management ideas, five of them are No Kill (#3 Austin, #4 Denver, #5 Portland, #7 Salt Lake City, and #9 Seattle), one is in the 80-90% live release range (#10 San Francisco), three have active efforts in place to get to No Kill (#1 New York City, #6 Philadelphia, and #8 Los Angeles), and the remaining one, (#2 Boston), is probably doing better or much better than average but we do not have numbers to verify it. On page 34 of the study is a list of the mayors’ responses to the question: “What is the most recent idea you have learned about from another city (domestic or foreign) and then brought to your own?” Of the 48 ideas listed, one is “No Kill animal shelter.” This study shows pretty conclusively that the most admired cities in the United States, the ones that other cities look to for leadership, have a commitment to No Kill. It seems obvious from this survey that the best mayors in the United States are keenly interested in No Kill sheltering, realize that it is an innovative and progressive idea, and look at it as a strong positive for their cities. One encouraging fact is that the No Kill movement is already doing many things to help mayors achieve their No Kill goals. In numerous cities advocates have formed large non-profits that are assisting the cities with fundraising for medical treatments, fostering neonatal kittens, TNR, shelter-neuter-return programs, adoption events, volunteer management, publicity, and more. In some cities, like Austin, Reno, Atlanta, Kansas City, and New York, the non-profits partner with the city shelter or have contracted to run the shelter. In addition to the proliferation of No Kill non-profits, the No Kill movement has stepped up to provide resources for city leaders who want to create a No Kill shelter. Bonney Brown and Diane Blankenburg teach a certificate program at the University of the Pacific for lifesaving shelter management. Maddie’s Fund has created a free online library getting into the nuts and bolts of management of a successful No Kill shelter. We have “how to” workshops taught each year by American Pets Alive in Austin. There are several national conferences, including those put on by Best Friends, the No Kill Advocacy Center, the Michigan Pet Fund Alliance, and New Mexico Pets Alive, among others. This is an exciting new era for No Kill.  With mayors on board, the only obstacle left is the actual implementation. That’s a daunting challenge, but there are lots of knowledgeable No Kill advocates and leaders who are willing to partner with cities to make No Kill a reality.

Out the Front Door is now on Twitter! Handle is @outthefrontdoor. The Twitter feed will have the blogs of course, but also No Kill news and events.

By Mark Penn OK, I admit it; I’m kind of a conference junkie. A bit of an introvert, so I don’t like to make myself very conspicuous, but I enjoy, in fact I thrive, on being in a room, a stadium, or even a closet with people who have deep convictions that are similar to my own. I’ve found that in the past five years, my convictions are more and more focused on the work of the No Kill movement. And I haven’t found a better place to draw energy from fellow No Kill advocates than the various conferences that are offered by some of our leading organizations. My perspective on all of this comes from my position as a longtime board member for the Sonoma Humane Society in Northern California. We are a medium-sized private shelter, and our Board is somewhat hands-on, although only in certain areas. I was president of the board through some difficult times, including a transition of Executive Directors, a longterm financial crisis (now resolved, thankfully), and a current LRR of 97%. Now my interests as a board member focus most keenly on Advocacy. With this viewpoint, you might find my experiences to be very different from those of someone in a different capacity with a different organization. But when invited to guest-blog on my own impressions and experiences of the Best Friends National Conference, I was happy to spend the flight back across the country working on this chronicle. I’ve been to three national No Kill conferences now – the first two were produced by the No Kill Advocacy Center and were held in Washington, DC. To put it bluntly, I fell in love with the movement at these events. Unfortunately Nathan has at least temporarily suspended those yearly events, and I have been feeling the loss – until I became aware of this year’s Best Friends annual conference. It was held in Atlanta this past week (7/15-7/19) and drew just under 1500 folks from around the country. This conference was divided into several tracks, and we attendees could choose among them, and/or “cross-track” into any sessions from any area that was of interest to us. The track choices included No-Kill Components (I’m paraphrasing the titles here): Rallying the Community (Advocacy), Increasing Adoptions, Resolving Behavior Issues (animals, not people…), Animal Wellness, Fundraising, Marketing, and Leadership. Of course like most conferences, there were exhibits, mixing/networking sessions, ad hoc get-togethers, etc. Technology was running rampant at the conference, like it is most everywhere. One of the most useful tools we had at our disposal was a conference app that was very powerful, including an individual’s session planning, an easy way to keep personal notes which were also shareable if one chose to do so, session evaluation opportunities, messaging to conferees from the organizers and amongst ourselves, maps, and even a listing of nearby “veg-friendly” restaurants. Oh, and perhaps the best piece of all of that was the opportunity to download all of the powerpoints and handouts from any session, whether I attended or not, for my own reference. That part really eased my concern about not being able to get to two or more contemporaneous sessions without possessing the talent of being in two or more places at once. With this app tool, all I had to carry around with me was my smartphone. Very cool. The conference was well-organized and moved smoothly, at least from my perspective. I heard a few mutterings a couple of times from some others who wished that some of the meeting/breakout rooms were larger, but I’m not entirely sure how conference organizers plan for that, in trying to read 1500 minds and where those minds will want to go every couple of hours. The cadre of volunteers who kept us flowing and timely did a great job, and I had to give kudos, even to the woman who wouldn’t let me in to what was originally a men’s room but had been hijacked for the ladies (since we males were highly outnumbered at the conference). She was nice enough to help me find a “real” men’s room – or perhaps that should be a “real men’s” room – before things became emergent. Although the conference appeared to kick off with the Thursday afternoon sessions, there was a “pre-conference” talk available in the morning. It seemed at first odd to me that the organizers chose to begin with a session that focused on burnout (“Hearts Larger Than Hands: Creating Balance in Your Life to Save More Animals”) but as it progressed, the light went on for me – it was almost like the Catholic requirement of making confession before taking communion (if you’ll pardon the religious reference) – and I found the session to be cleansing and a great preparation for what was to follow later that afternoon and through the weekend. Clearly, if we don’t take care of ourselves in this bloody battle to stop shelter killing, we will drain ourselves of the juices necessary to save as many animals as possible. It makes sense that we are often in a cyclone of “must-do’s,” but it makes even more sense that giving ourselves a break will, in the long run, lengthen our own worklife and by extension, the number of animal lives that we can save over that longer and more efficient period of time. As a quick shout out to the excellent presentation by the session leaders, I want to mention their latest book, “The Power of Joy in Giving to Animals.” I’m looking forward to reading it. Thursday afternoon’s sessions allowed us to dive right in to the subjects at hand, and I chose to attend the sessions titled “Advocacy 101: Successful Lobbying for Community Cats,” followed by “Working the System: Understanding Good Policies and How to Get Them in Your Community.” My thirst for Advocacy was getting a good slaking right off the bat. I also have to tip my hat to the presenters. All of the sessions that I attended were well-prepared and the presenters knew their subjects while managing their audiences as well as they handled their material. I did not attend the after-hours social and networking events that were offered, as I needed an occasional recharge to absorb as much of the session information as possible, and as I said, I’m not exactly the type that bounces around the ballroom anyway. Friday began with an all-conference and enthusiastic welcome session which might have been a bit too rah-rah (from my curmudgeonly perspective), but did include interesting commentaries from several Best Friends bigwigs and ended with an engaging talk by a woman named Asha Curran, director of the Center for Innovation and Social Impact for the 92Y institution in New York. We heard about the importance of innovation and keeping up with current trends – even keeping ahead of them. The late morning session allowed us to choose one of eight highlighted No Kill communities and learn about how they achieved their success, along with some of the lessons they learned along the way. Boy, it was hard to choose – and if I had any complaint at all about the conference, it would be that I would have loved to hear several of these presentations, rather than have them presented all at the same time. After lunch there were two more sessions with several options; I selected “The Data Dance: Your No Kill Best Friend” and “Rallying the Troops: How to Engage Your Community to Save More Lives.” Saturday morning’s first event was basically a send-off and salute to Rich Avenzino, the retiring president of Maddie’s Fund, who will step down this summer. It was an informative and touching tribute to someone who clearly was behind the No Kill movement’s birth and development. The second morning session’s choice for me was “Engaged: Effective Community Messaging,” and after lunch I hit “Special Delivery: Transporting Pets to New Homes” (I’m an avid transporter; there’s nothing like having a pair of puppy eyes – or 20 pairs of them – staring at you while making a beeline down the freeway… oh yes, along with the smell of lots of poop). I confess that I missed the big “Save Them All Celebration” in the late afternoon, in favor of a little of that recharging I mentioned earlier. Sunday was a half-day affair, as the conference was officially ending before lunchtime, although it was followed in the afternoon by a separate Animal Law Symposium. As an advocate I was sorry to miss the symposium, but my airline seat was beckoning me to get home to my own fur family. I did squeeze two final sessions in on Sunday morning though: “It’s a Win-Win: Friends of Animals Programs” and “Committed Partner Outreach: The Power of Best Friends Network Partners.” As I exited that final session, of course sorry to leave the fountain of information and inspiration, the mood around the conference center was definitely more quiet and unwinding, but understandably so, and it actually gave those of us who were there until lunchtime a little bit of reflection and perhaps the beginning of a gentle letdown for our journey back to the reality of home. Now, the challenge is to take all of this terrific stuff and figure out how to use it locally. My shelter and my community would use it very differently than one somewhere else. But that, I think, is part of the beauty of all of this – the 1500 of us who descended on Atlanta leave that one single place, on 1500 different roads home, that will all hopefully bring us to one single destination: a No Kill nation. As Best Friends would say, we truly can “Save Them All.” Along with all of this “serious” stuff, I noticed that No Kill conferences must be THE most fertile ground for the collection of fascinating T-shirts. The number of organizations represented at these conferences, combined with the innovation, creativity, and convictions/missions that they bring with them, have produced some great mottos, missions, and T-shirts! Next years’ Best Friends Annual Conference will be held in Salt Lake City, July 14-17, 2016. If you are a No Kill enthusiast, or even questioning the meaning of it, and you enjoy the camaraderie of hundreds of other committed warriors, I highly recommend these endeavors. There’s nothing like a fully charged battery when it comes to this work that so often drains us of so much. Do it for yourself and for your community’s animals.

Montmorency County, Michigan, is located in the northern part of Michigan’s lower peninsula, and has about 10,000 residents. Up until 2009, the county sheriff’s office handled animal control. The Elk Country Animal Shelter (ECAS) is a 501(c)(3) organization that supported the county shelter for years and finally took it over entirely in April 2009. Animals were kept in outdoor kennels at the sheriffs office and ECAS’s first order of business was to create a shelter building where the animals could be indoors. The shelter lists owner surrenders as a service it provides and does not list any restrictions on surrenders on its website. Here are the live release rates for the county as reported to the state of Michigan for the five years since ECAS took over the shelter: 2009 — 97% 2010 — 97% 2011 — 97% 2012 — 97% 2013 — 92% The Elk Country shelter had to deal with a hoarding/cruelty situation early in 2013 where the shelter wound up taking in close to 40 dogs. Since Elk Country is a very small shelter, the 40 dogs represented a substantial part of its dog intake for the year. The shelter’s mission was endangered in 2012 when a contract dispute with the county caused ECAS to stop formally taking in strays. Volunteers for the shelter went out on their own time and rescued strays and took them to a neighboring shelter. Fortunately the dispute only lasted a couple of weeks, and on April 11, 2012 the county approved the funding asked for by the shelter. The shelter provides for much of its income by its own fundraising. Montmorency County, MI, was originally listed by this blog on May 17, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

There’s an article about Target Zero (TZ) in the most recent issue of Animal Sheltering (the HSUS magazine). The article has a pretty good discussion of how TZ developed its program and how it has been implemented in Waco and Baton Rouge. It got me thinking about the different ways that No Kill programs can be implemented. First of all, I should state at the outset of this discussion that I disagree with one of TZ’s basic premises, which is that reducing intake is more important than increasing live releases. I think they are both equally important. The article states that TZ has relied on Peter Marsh’s research for the conclusion that reducing intake matters more. I’ve read Peter Marsh’s research, and as far as I can see it relies entirely on data from traditional shelters — shelters that have low live release rates. With shelters like that, it’s true that the only thing that lowers shelter killing is lowering intake, but the reason for that is that those shelters do not have modern, marketing-based adoption programs. So of course their adoption rates aren’t going to be very high. Yet TZ has used Marsh’s research to justify putting adoptions low on its priority scale. But it’s possible that Marsh’s approach will work well in some cities — cities like Waco and Baton Rouge. The methods for reducing intake (as opposed to increasing live releases) tend to be low tech — things like TNR, having appointments for surrender, charging a surrender fee, targeted spay-neuter programs, returning animals in the field, updating city ordinances, etc. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recruit veterinarians or manage any of those things. Methods for increasing live releases, on the other hand, tend to require creativity and marketing and people skills. Having a successful mega-adoption event is not easy (I know this from personal experience, it’s amazing all the different skills needed). Implementing an effective shelter marketing program takes just as much skill, in my opinion, as directing a political campaign or running a big disaster-relief program. Not a place for amateurs. One of the sticking points for getting to No Kill in many, many places has been leadership. We see it happen over and over again that a city or county hires a new shelter director, hopeful that the director will take the local shelter to No Kill, but it doesn’t happen. To implement all the programs that will both decrease intake and increase live releases requires a lot of particular skills, and it may be that there just aren’t that many people who are in the market to be shelter directors who have that particular skill set. So, getting back to TZ, I’m wondering if they have hit upon something, which is that if you are in a city with a high-intake, high-kill shelter and shelter leadership that is willing but does not fall into that small category of people who have the skill set to be No Kill rock stars, perhaps the best thing you can do is to pick the low-hanging fruit. Get intake down by the easy methods that anyone could do, start the city and the shelter on the road to success. As they get the intake under control they will be inspired to start working on the harder stuff such as a neonatal foster program and mega-adoption events. Yes it’s very tempting to say the city should just fire the current director and somehow find a No Kill rock star, but in a lot of cities that’s just not going to happen, and meanwhile time goes by and animals keep dying. Another important point is that there may still be places in the country where there is a lot to be gained from increasing spay-neuter programs. The average spay-neuter rate for owned pets in the United States is 85% or more, which means there must be a lot of communities where we’ve pretty much maxed out the benefits to be had from low-cost spay neuter. There must be lots of communities where people have gotten the message and they are very responsibly spaying and neutering their pets. But in some places with high intake, there still might be a lot to be gained from spay-neuter. If that’s the case, then it makes sense to push spay-neuter as one of your initial programs, because it’s easy to implement and easy to fund in most instances. TZ seems to be tailoring its program recommendations to the different situations in the different cities it works with. In Huntsville, for example, it helped the shelter put on a mega-adoption event that was very successful. Rick DuCharme, who is a senior consultant to TZ along with Marsh, has put on many successful mega-adoption events in Jacksonville, so it’s not like TZ doesn’t have the skills on board to advise about adoptions. Finally, TZ seems to emphasize collaboration. This is a hot-button issue with some No Kill advocates, who believe that collaboration just slows things down. Again, though, perhaps there are are places where collaboration is the fastest way to get to the goal. I’m still very much on the fence on the issue of whether TZ is on the right track or not. I still disagree with the conclusions Marsh draws from his research. But I believe the TZ approach is something that bears thinking about and discussion. Maybe the TZ program isn’t right for every city — certainly Kansas City Pet Project proved that it’s possible to implement intake reduction and live-release-increasing programs at the same time and do it very successfully. But it might be that one-size-fits-all isn’t a good approach, and that the TZ methods have a place in cities and counties that are starting with very little.

Scarlett, before she was named Scarlett, was a homeless calico cat who lived in a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn. In the late winter of 1996 she had a litter of five kittens in a deserted garage. The garage was a decrepit hulk with unstable beams – a neighborhood eyesore. One early morning before daylight, about three or four weeks after Scarlett had her kittens, the garage caught fire. The fire appeared to be arson, not an accident, and flames were roaring out the front when firefighters arrived. The firefighters could not enter the building due to the danger of collapse. Fortunately, there were no homeless people sleeping there that night. One of the firemen who responded to the call, David Giannelli, was an animal lover who had often rescued animals from burning buildings. As he fought the fire he heard some faint meows. He traced the sound to the lot next door, where he found three kittens huddled against the wall of a building. Their fur was scorched and their ears were a little singed. Giannelli heard more cries, and he found two more singed kittens. It was easy to deduct that the mother of the kittens had carried them through the fire, but there was no mother to be seen. After putting the kittens in a box, Giannelli and a couple of bystanders looked for the mother. They finally found her lying in the vacant lot across the street, not moving and and badly burned. Her coat was singed, the skin on her head was so burned that she could not open her eyes, and her ears were burned. Giannelli put her in the box with the kittens, and their meowing revived her enough to do a head count by touching them each with her nose. By the time the fire was out it was daylight. Giannelli was acquainted with the staff at North Shore Animal League, where he had taken injured animals before, and he called and told them what had happened. They told him to bring mom and kittens in right away. The kittens had some burns, but the main danger to them was smoke inhalation. Scarlett was in the worst shape, with significant burns on her head and body. And she was very thin, not in the best shape to fight off possible infection and lung damage. North Shore had a full-service veterinary clinic, and they were able to stabilize mom and kittens and put them in an oxygen chamber to help their lungs. Scarlett’s kittens were each a different color – white, dark brown, pinto, grey, and Siamese. The two that Scarlett brought out last, the white and grey ones, had to have fluids. They improved, and all five kittens did well enough to be placed in foster care. Then disaster struck, as the white kitten and the brown one came down with a virus. The white kitten died, and the brown one was left with a little nerve damage. The surviving kittens showed virtually no scarring from the fire, but Scarlett clearly looked like a burn victim. She had severe scarring on her face, her eye rims were burned, and her ears were half gone. Meanwhile, the news media had been going wild with the story of the heroic mother cat who had raced back and forth through the flames five times to carry her kittens to safety. Scarlett became internationally famous, and North Shore received more than 6000 letters from people wanting to adopt her or one of her kittens. Scarlett wanted to be an only cat, and her four surviving kittens had bonded into two pairs, so North Shore selected three lucky homes for the celebrities. In a follow-up story in 2001, all were reported as doing well. There have been many animal heroes, but one nice thing about this story is that it involved a stray cat. Scarlett does not appear to have been feral, and instead was what we today would call a community cat. By the time Scarlett had her kittens in 1996, there was a growing number of shelters where cats like her had a chance. And her story shows that the public will help when given the opportunity. From the firefighters and bystanders who rescued Scarlett and her kittens to the thousands of people who offered to adopt, the “irresponsible public” saved the day once again. References: Martin & Suares, “Scarlett Saves Her Family,” Simon & Schuster Editions (1997); New York Times, May 2, 1996, Mar. 4, 2001.

In the last 30 to 40 years there have been great changes in how most owned dogs and cats live their lives in the United States. Those changes raise some important questions about the quality of life of modern cats and dogs. Dogs first arrived in the United States some 9,000 years ago, and they lived and worked with Native Americans. More dogs arrived with European settlers beginning in the 1600s. Cats were brought over on ships with the earliest European explorers, so their history in the United States is measured in hundreds of years rather than thousands. Up through the mid-1900s, the great majority of dogs and cats spent at least part of their time outdoors. This was partly tradition, since dogs and cats had always been allowed to roam. It was also partly practical, since flea control was sketchy and kitty litter had not been invented. Sterilization of dogs and cats was rare in the mid-1900s and earlier, so people had to deal with behaviors like marking, spraying, and caterwauling that made cats and dogs undesirable to have in the house full-time. In the mid-1900s society underwent a revolution in the way people lived, with a move from farms and small towns to the suburbs and cities. During that time sterilization for pets remained rare, largely due to the belief that the surgeries were harmful to animals and the fact that (in the days before antibiotics and good anesthetics) the surgeries, especially spay surgery, were somewhat risky. By the 1970s the population of dogs and cats had reached what was seen as crisis proportions – unsurprising given that cats and dogs were still typically free-roaming and unsterilized at that time. A movement began, supported by the traditional shelter industry and virtually all of the humane organizations, to get people to spay and neuter their pets and start keeping dogs on leash or otherwise under control. This movement was extremely successful, and from 1970 to 2000 we saw a rapid cultural change. By the year 2000 it was considered socially unacceptable in most neighborhoods for people to allow their dogs out to roam by themselves. Also by 2000, substantial majorities of pet owners had their cats and dogs sterilized. Free-roaming dogs and cats were no longer at crisis levels in most places. The changes in where people live and the growing prohibitions on allowing dogs and cats to be free-roaming have resulted in major changes in how dogs, and to a lesser extent cats, live their lives. One hundred years ago dogs had a great deal more freedom than they have today. They could choose how they spent their time, what they did, and who they associated with. Many dogs had routines that they carried out on their own, such as patrolling the neighborhood, hanging out with their dog friends, rummaging in the garbage, or going to meet the kids coming home from school or their owners on the way home from work. The routine of most cats concentrated more on hunting than socializing, but cats too could go where they wanted and do what they wanted. Today, responsible owners walk their dogs on leash and the dogs are only allowed to run free in a fenced yard or a dog park. Cat owners are urged to keep their cats entirely indoors, and pacify them by building elaborate cat play areas. In some ways what has happened to dogs and cats mirrors what has happened to children. Up until perhaps 30 or 40 years ago it was routine for parents to allow their children to roam the neighborhood unsupervised. Children as young as six were allowed to walk to school by themselves or with friends, and the only rule for play time was to come home in time for dinner. Today, of course, children are much more closely supervised, and the supervision is enforced by law. In Maryland the parents of two children, ages 10 and 6, were threatened with having their children taken away because the parents allowed the kids to walk home from a park by themselves in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. Even parents who disagree with the choices of the Maryland parents may be concerned that the close supervision of today’s children inhibits their ability to learn independence, social skills, good judgment, and problem-solving. Similarly, with dogs and cats who live in a constantly controlled and supervised environment, their socialization skills, confidence, judgment, and independence can suffer. With dogs we can see this manifested as hostility to strangers, unpredictable behavior, separation anxiety, and an inability to understand social cues from other dogs, among other behavior problems. With cats kept indoors we can see stress and boredom. There is no doubt that the modern, more confined life of dogs and cats is physically safer for them. With increasing population density and more and more cars in the environment, the danger of being killed or badly hurt by a car is a constant threat to free-roaming cats and dogs. There may be other benefits to confinement as well, such as a greater attachment between person and pet. But there is no doubt that dogs and cats have lost a great deal in losing their freedom. If I had to choose whether to live as a dog in 1915 or 2015, I would choose 1915 hands down, in spite of the possibility that my life might well be shorter. Is there anything we can do to give dogs and cats back their freedom? With cats, I think the answer is yes. Cats who are sterilized and have had their shots should be allowed to roam free if they want, in my opinion. If a person’s home is simply too dangerous to allow a cat to roam due to vehicular traffic, interfering neighbors, or aggressive animal control, then a move to a more accommodating neighborhood may be in order. For dogs it is a much more difficult problem. Dog parks, dog beaches, and other places where dogs can roam free may help. Intensive socialization of the young dog with many different people and dogs, in many different environments, may help. If a dog has to be on leash, then the owner might want to take the dog on one or two long walks a day where the dog gets to lead and gets to decide where to go and what to do. Some doggie day care places do a great job and are like spas for dogs, but they can be expensive. I’m sure dog behavior experts could come up with many more suggestions. Perhaps the most important thing is simply to recognize the problem. No Kill shelters today do a good job at matching dogs and cats to the temperament and lifestyle of their prospective owners. Simply preventing mismatches could go a long way toward ameliorating the problems of the modern lifestyle. And urban planning needs to begin to include better accommodations for pets. Ten years ago disaster management agencies simply ignored pets, but that changed after Katrina. If people today really value their pets as family members they will seek out neighborhoods where pets are welcome and where design considerations such as green space, walking trails and dog parks have been incorporated. Those things will help people too, and they should not be restricted only to wealthier neighborhoods.